


Altered Reflections

by Sheneya



Category: Eureka (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe Meets Canon, Gen, M/M, Rating May Change, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-15 11:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14789322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheneya/pseuds/Sheneya
Summary: Eureka meets some of their people from another reality who lead very different lives.





	1. Diverging Roads

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by Jujubiest

Henry Deacon had been twenty-five years old when he’d finally landed a full-time job at Stark-Jacob Labs, a small lab within an almost as small military base. It wasn’t Henry’s first choice, but at least the Lab insisted on working only on Non-lethal weapons when asked, and spent more time studying everything else instead. Besides, even with his college degree a lot of other places had “lost” his applications as soon as they’d seen the colour of his skin, and the ones that had hired him never offered more than part-time contracts.

But Michelle and David Stark-Jacob had decided to hire him as soon as they realized he was, in fact, one of the highest-scoring intellects in his field. It helped that he had a good work ethic as well.

Henry pulled himself out of his memory and away from the microscope he was currently studying microscopic fractures on one of the recently returned rocket pieces. Suddenly a soft tap against the lab window distracted him from his thoughts.

The kid on the other side of the glass was one Nathan Stark-Jacob. He was a fairly happy ten-year-old and was clearly taking after both his parents in the intelligence department. However, he was still quite young and usually the only time he came to the lab from the small nearby town was to either have lunch here or at the diner with his parents and/or Henry. And that was only during the school holidays… like now.

Henry checked the clock. It was lunchtime, and from the looks of it Nathan had seen his mother while she was working. She’d told him to grab some lunch money and eat without her, which was very rare, and also meant she was probably extremely busy with the strange artifact her lab had recently been asked to study.

His thoughts were confirmed when Nathan waved a couple of twenty dollar bills hopefully at him. Henry nodded; he wasn’t working on anything that was time constrained, and the fracture patterns wouldn’t be changing anytime soon.

Going over to the door, he hung his lab coat on the nearby hook and greeted the boy properly for the first time. “Hello Nathan, we’re going to the diner for lunch I see.”

Nathan nodded his head vigorously. “Yep… you’ll need to drive as well, Papa brought me in, but General Cod’s Wallop and some soldier guys brought in a whole lot of important paperwork for him to sign. He’s taking it home to look through, but he wouldn’t be able to drive us back as well… there’s a LOT.” The boys eyes went wide as he said it.

“It’s General Caldurt, Nathan.”Henry wasn’t surprised as he said this, he had seen the military bring enough paperwork to fill an entire car more than once. Henry would probably drive Nathan back for a little while after lunch, in hopes his mother would be able to spend a little spare time with him, then either she or Henry would drive Nathan home for the day.

The thirty minute drive was mostly uneventful, and aside from one of the military vehicles going past they’d made it to the diner without seeing much traffic. This wasn’t unusual. he town tended to get its business mainly from the small base and the occasional holiday road-trippers.

Lunch was simple but well made. Both of them ordered their standard lunch of a hamburger and fries, although Henry paired his with a nice, refillable coffee, while Nathan had a chocolate milkshake. Technically the milkshake wasn’t refillable, but the little diner’s manager/cook/waitress Dorothy had a soft spot for kids and usually topped it up at least once without charge.

Both of them looked up from their food as the sound of the doorbell jangled through the diner. It was clear that the young couple and their son, a little blonde boy, were not on the best leg of a road trip. They seemed to know the unspoken rule of roadside diners, because the father quickly ordered a coffee before asking if the waitress had a bathroom and some cloths or napkins. The mother was softly comforting the boy, who seemed about five years old and was clearly still suffering some effects of the motion sickness that was quite obviously the reason for the cloths the father had asked for.

Henry watched as the mother took their son to the bathroom with half the napkins, while the father went out to the the car with the rest and a bottle of all-purpose cleaner, clearly intending to clean it out.

Henry took another bite from his burger and Nathan idly munched on a few chips as they watched the father look over the backseat of his car. He seemed to breath a sigh of relief before he started cleaning, only looking up as his wife came out and grabbed a few of their child’s clothes from a bag in the boot.

The two exchanged words calmly. As far as Henry could tell they just asked how each other’s self-assigned tasks were going before returning to them, the woman rushing back to the small bathroom as the man wiped down the last traces of sick from their car before heading back in to return the cleaner.

“Is the little fella alright?” Dorothy asked the man as he handed the spray bottle back to her.

“Yeah.” The man’s voice was a little rough and deep. “We managed to find a place to pull over before it went everywhere, but he still wore half of it, so Mary had to change his clothes.”

Dorothy tilted her head in sympathy. “You folk’s need anything else?”

The man nodded. “ Some sandwiches or something to take with us would be good, Mary thinks Jack will probably want to eat after his stomach settles. Normally he has no problem with car rides, but we passed some rather rotten roadkill on the way in, and the wind blew the smell right into the car.”

“Ahh, that can happen sometimes ‘round here.” Dorothy said with a sympathetic wince.

Their discussion told Henry the couple were driving from the opposite end of town to the base. He and Nathan hadn’t driven past any roadkill on the way in.

He turned to look and the jingling of the door’s bell sounded again, signalling the return of Mary and Jack, if Henry had heard correctly. Mary strode right up to her husband. Meanwhile Jack peered around from where he was hiding behind his mother’s dress, shyly waving at Henry and Nathan before disappearing back into the folds.

It wasn’t a surprise. Even at such a young age, accidentally puking on yourself had to be kind of embarrassing.

Mary smiled at them, then Dorothy, before ordering what Henry thought was the type of food Jack would like later on. His theory was confirmed as Jack’s face actually lit up slightly before he turned a tad green around the gills again. It was good they’d decided on things that could be eaten later without issue.

The food handed over, the little family made their way back out to the car, promising to have an actual sit down visit on the way back. Apparently they were on their way to a family reunion or birthday party, Henry wasn’t sure.

Henry looked over at Nathan, then down at his own plate. They were both nearly finished. He looked up as the car pulled out of its parking space and made its way down the road that passed the base. Presumably they were going to drive a little slower until young Jack’s stomach settled. He then picked up the rest of his burger while jokingly pretending not to notice as Nathan snitched a few chips off his plate before sliding the pickle from his own burger out to replace them before chowing down.

Nathan ate quickly, finishing his burger and the stolen chips in a few bites as Henry polished of the chips he had left and his newly-acquired pickle.

They’d just paid for the meal when the sound of an explosion echoed through the town, coming from the vicinity of the lab.

Henry shouted a quick. “Keep the change.” at Dorothy as he bolted to the car, Nathan not far behind. Nathan knew the rules, he’d been born less than a year after his parents had received permission for the lab, so he’d pretty much been raised to follow lab safety rules.

They were driving faster than normal to get to the lab as quickly as possible, so they came across the terrible scene much sooner. The front half of the car that had left before them was completely crushed. Henry recognized the thing lying on top of it as part of a strange, glowing artifact the Stark-Jacobs had recently been asked to study.

He was about to ask Nathan to call the accident site in on the military-provided car phone that was set for the lab, the base, and a nearby military checkpoint, in the hopes they could get through to one of those three. But the look on Nathan’s face as he stared at the destroyed vehicle… no, a certain point in the vehicle, made Henry turn around and look closer.

As he looked he saw a slight movement, then another.

Then a sudden gust of wind blew the majority of the accident’s smokescreen out of the way.

He saw a tiny hand thumping against the glass in the mostly-undamaged rear half of the car.

He leapt out, the fire extinguisher he’d insisted on having in his car yanked from its place in the backseat footwell, just in case the damaged car suddenly went up like the thick smoke suggested it might. Yelling at Nathan to remain inside the car and try and get through on the three lines, he ran to the car.

He was worried, he’d heard the rumours of the radiation from this object killing people within minutes, but little Jack was still alive. Tiny, little Jack. If it was that bad, surely he’d have been dead long before their car had pulled up?

Reaching the car, he didn’t even go for the door handle. One look told him he couldn’t get those hinges open if he’d had an hour and a blowtorch.

“COVER YOUR FACE KID.” The thick smoke and urgency made Henry’s voice harsher then he’d expected, but it got the point across.

He wrapped his jacket around one arm and waited the endless microsecond it took for the boy to do so before pushing his protected hand through the hole in the partially-broken window, pulling glass out and finishing the what the accident had started.

He pulled as many of the spider-webbed pieces out of the door’s window frame as he could. He then shoved as much of his body through the opening as he could without losing his balance and clicked the thankfully not stuck seat-belt open before wrapping his arms around Jack and using all his strength and a good amount of leverage to pull the boy out through the window and haul him away from the car.

He lifted the kid up and ran to where Nathan was standing, now free of the smoke, he took a few deep breaths . A small, scared-looking nod from the other boy told Henry he’d managed to get through to… someone, Henry didn’t know who. The large emergency blanket Nathan was holding open made Henry feel relief, he wouldn’t need to drag it out himself with a now shivering child in his arms as well.

“General Caldurt said to wait here until his people drove back.”

As though magically summoned by the correct pronunciation of his name, the General and his men’s vehicles rolled up, every one of them in full radiation gear.

“General, what’s the situation?”

General Caldurt reached up and patted him on the face, then again.

Slowly the military group faded away and coalesced into a semi-dark room and the faces of Nathan and Jack looking down at him, now twelve and seven respectively.

“What’s the matter guys?” Henry’s voice was still rough from sleep.

“Jack had a dream about the car again.” Nathan’s voice was soft as he explained, Jack’s head nodded sheepishly from just behind the older boy’s elbow.

Henry sighed for a full second, looking around at the half-packed boxes that filled his room before lifting up the blanket and shuffling to the other side of the bed. ‘Come on you two.”

It had been a semi-regular occurrence since that day. Jack’s face lit up before he clambered into Henry’s large bed. Nathan followed a little more sedately. He always insisted he was there for Jack, but Henry knew he enjoyed the company as well.

“So, your dad says we’ll start moving the packed boxes tomorrow?” Henry prodded.

Nathan nodded. 

“It’s good we have a few days with the people moving us, I don’t think we’d be able to get everything transported in one day, and we still need to finish packing half our stuff,” he said.

Nathan nodded again before letting out a small sigh.

“Is something the matter Nathan?”

Henry’s question seemed to make Nathan pause.

“Are you worried about moving?”

The boy shook his head at Henry’s question. He then looked down as a soft weight settled on his chest, Jack had apparently decided to cuddle up mainly with Nathan this time.

“Are you thinking about your father’s question this evening?”

“... My Mother’s last name.”

Henry nodded as he recalled what had actually happened after the memory/dream he’d had before being woken up.

The general had informed them that no one was able to get through to the lab site.

It had been a shocking realisation when they’d finally arrived at the area. Henry in the back of a military with with two scared boys after his car had failed to start for some reason.

There was no longer a lab site. Nor much of a base. The only thing that they could see was the glow of the other half of the artifact that was still wedged in the front seat of a destroyed car.

“Nathan Stark has a nice ring to it.”

“He looked sad when he asked though.”

“I don’t think he was sad to be asking you if you wanted to carry your mother’s name… Nate, your father will never completely get over losing Michelle. You will never completely get over it either. Anymore than Jack will get over losing his parents.”

Jack’s soft, sleepy whimper seemed to prove Henry’s point.

“David isn’t sad about you potentially having her name, he just misses his wife, your mother, very, very much.”

Nathan nodded again. “I think I want to take it.”

“Then take it.”

The only response Henry got was a sleepy mumble as Nathan’s face sank into the top of Jack’s hair.

Henry stayed awake and listened until both the boys’ breath evened out into sleep.

“Eureka huh.” He said to thin air. “I hear it’s a nice little town.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The AU group begins their move to Eureka.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> betaed by jujubiest

Henry groaned as he straightened after sealing yet another box. Stretching his arms up, he waited for inevitable pop near the centre of his spine before looking over to his bed at the first sign since he’d woken up that the two children were also stirring.

Sometime between when Henry had fallen back to sleep and then woken up, Jack had buried himself beneath the blankets and wrapped his arms firmly around the older boy’s stomach. The younger boy’s nose was probably pressed somewhere against Nathan’s upper rib cage.

There was a small huff as the blankets wriggled again. Then a little more movement, followed by a small hand reaching out and gently patting the side of Nathan’s still sleeping face. Jack huffed again, this time his small, blonde head poked up through the path his hand had taken.

His hand tapped insistently on the side of Nathan’s face again. This time Nathan’s brow crinkled and his face turned sharply away from the gentle motion.

Henry decided to leave them be for now and grabbed another box that needed sealing. He ended up dropping the tape roll however when Nathan suddenly shot up and glared at Jack. His face softened a little though as Jack’s apologetically rubbed his mildly injured nose making him go cross eyed.

As far as Henry could tell, Jack had tried to wake him up with another gentle pat, but Nathan had turned back towards the younger boy just as he’d started. This had resulted in Jack accidentally smacking the tip of his nose instead of his cheek.

Henry picked up the tape and finished sealing the box he’d been looking at. He turned towards the door as a soft knock on its frame caught both his and the two boys’ attention. David was also awake and had come around to check on the kids as well as get an idea of how many boxes could be collected once the first moving truck arrived.

In the time since the accident, he’d gotten used to finding the boys in Henry’s room after one of Jack’s nightmares. Officially the younger boy’s recently finalized adoption was in David’s name, and that had taken a lot of indirect assistance from the military and government officials that had hired them to study the artifact, But he still felt far more comfortable around his rescuer, Henry, and around Nathan. The two boys had bonded through their sudden losses.

In fact, Nathan was the first to figure out that the artifact had affected Jack while he’d been trapped. For nearly six months, Jack had been diagnosed as being non-verbal due to the sudden, severe trauma. Henry and David had needed to learn how to translate his body language and the few sounds he made. Nathan, however had vehemently argued that he and Jack talked with each other all the time, and he always knew exactly what it was that Jack wanted, even as Henry and David needed to drag out half a dozen things before Jack nodded. And he’d been right: Jack spoke to Nathan a lot, just not out loud.

It wasn’t until Jack started actually talking telepathically, to Henry first, then later David, that the two men had really believed Nathan. Henry thought it was probably their traumatic bond that had Jack talking to Nathan before anyone else, at least partially.

The diagnosis was still mostly right though. Jack had only recently started saying some words out loud, but even with his previously shy nature, he was still not talking anywhere near as much as members of his family remembered him being able to. At least the two members that came forward to claim him after the accident. They’d temporarily stayed in the city, close to the appointed courthouse. 

The first was Sarah, an aunt on his father’s side. She’d been very honest, told them she really didn’t believe she was capable of raising him, but she’d do her best if no one else was willing to. She’d actually been part of the reason that David had put his name in as a potential caretaker. 

She believed David could look after him properly after her first time meeting Nathan. After all, as strange as most people found it, David had been Nathan’s primary caregiver. His wife did very well also, but she knew more about the research than he did, so he was home more often. She also firmly believed Henry when he explained he’d try and help as well. Jack’s calm, though sad behaviour around him sealed the deal for her.

The second aunt was the problem, Her name was Barbara. From Jack’s mother’s side, she’d been a thorn in their side right up until the finalized adoption. At first, it had seemed like she’d be taking the younger boy under her care no matter what, after all, she had enough money.

Until Jack met her in the large mall near the courthouse for the first time since the accident. Henry had only heard a few sounds from Jack at the time, so the loud, extended scream was a first. Jack had flat-out refused to let her pry him off of Nathan’s arm. Eventually a couple of security guards had taken her aside and told her they were making a scene. She’d stormed off in a huff. One of the people overseeing the proceedings had been there for lunch as well, so they ended up having a semi-credible witness to her apparently unprovoked actions.

It was clear, however, that she fully intended to claim Jack as her ward, even though he obviously and strenuously disliked her.

 

The reason for Jack’s dislike became very obvious within a few days of the first incident. Police officers had begun showing up regularly at David and Henry’s proverbial doorstep, constantly getting calls questioning Jack’s well-being, his safety, his health. Henry and David were very understanding the first few times. After all, Jack was her nephew. But in the end, it was quickly escalating into harassment, first mainly towards Henry, then David got pulled in. Still, they left it alone...until Nathan got dragged into it.

Suddenly, the older boy was getting picked up on his way back from the small classroom where he was taking supplementary classes to keep him up to date with his school work until they went back home. He was constantly being attacked about Henry’s caretaking abilities. Some of the officers didn’t even try to hide why they were targeting Henry in particular.

Then he was being asked borderline vulgar questions about Henry and David’s relationship, usually wrapped around David’s “home-making” tendencies. The man had just lost the love of his life, David and Henry were rightfully enraged about the insinuated lack of bereavement for David’s spouse.

It was around this time that Henry first heard Jack “Speak”. Jack had been very upset about how his aunt was behaving and how it was distressing Nathan. This was also about the time they’d contacted the lab’s military partners. Jack’s revelation seemed almost perfectly timed. No way the military would turn down the request when they had scientists that were in “control” of a potential telepath.

Henry and David both agreed they’d never let Jack get hurt, but it certainly gave them an edge when it came to the adoption process.

After that, it was a fast adoption, and after promising Sarah they’d keep in contact, David had finally signed the papers.

A few months after that the D.O.D had sent them a thinly-veiled “request” to relocate to Eureka.

They’d been on the fence, but some research on the town told them the D.O.D was only partially in charge of it. And the majority of the people there were against the thought of harming a child. From what they could tell, Jack would be very wary of anyone who might consider hurting him anyway, so they’d just have to listen to what he had to say.

Henry was pulled from his memories when David grabbed the box he’d just finished sealing, apparently he’d been lost in thought for a while. Long enough for both boys to get out of bed at least.

There was a ringing of the doorbell, apparently he was also lost in thought long enough for the first moving people to arrive.

The plan was that David and Nathan would take their car, travel with the first truck and start setting up the new house while Henry and Jack stayed behind to pack the last things. Aside from the one bed they’d left for Henry and Jack to sleep in, would all fit in a simple van. The DOD had already sent someone to pick up Henry’s own car. The bed, which was getting a little old and rickety, would stay in the house to be used or discarded by the next occupants.

The two adults were a little worried, as this would be the first time Jack and Nathan had really been separated from each other for more than a day. Even during the court issues, Nathan’s presence had been practically a requirement to keep Jack calm.

But they knew Jack needed to do things without Nathan’s constant company.

It was going to be an interesting couple of days moving to an interesting town.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beta-read by Jujubiest

Henry looked up as the sound of two sets of small feet padded down the stairs. Nathan was growing so fast, he wasn’t sure he could call that boy’s feet little anymore.

Shaking his head, he turned back to the lunch boxes he was making, only pausing to shift to one side when Nathan pulled open the cereal cupboard. Contrary to what he and David had initially thought, the short separation before the move hadn’t affected either of the boys negatively. Neither had their subsequent enrollment into the local schools, although Henry and David both believed that was more due to their close proximity to each other than anything else.

He smiled as he turned towards the sound of the fridge door opening. Much like himself and David, the boys had taken to sharing their chores; while he and David picked who did what chores on which days, the boys tended to split whatever chores they were doing at the time they were doing them.

Nathan, due to his height, tended to collect what they needed from the higher cupboards, while Jack, being shorter, collected stuff from the fridge. The younger boy still needed both arms to carry the currently full bottle of milk, so Henry slowed down his own activities, ready to jump in if Jack lost his grip. However, Jack ended up managing to carry the bottle over to the relatively low dining table without incident.

A few seconds later, Nathan placed the box of cereal the boys had chosen for the morning on the table as well before going back for bowls. Henry had stopped asking how they’d come to their decision months ago. He already knew the boys were talking to each other constantly with Jack’s abilities, even when Henry and David couldn’t hear them.

Jack’s abilities in mind, he still jumped a little at the soft nudge along the edge of his thoughts.

“Yes Jack?” He responded promptly to the implied request to talk to him. As much as the two boys prefered to talk Jack’s way, he’d learned and accepted that both adults prefered an indication before he started going around their heads, as innocent as his intentions were. In turn, both Henry and David always responded quickly when Jack “asked” permission, not wanting to make him feel ignored or uncomfortable himself.

“Having Breakfast?” Jack’s telepathic voice was quiet, and seemed to echo slightly at the same time.

“Yes, I’ll join you as soon as I’ve finished making your lunch boxes.” At Henry’s reply, Nathan, who had paused at the crockery cupboard to hear Henry’s answer, pulled out a third bowl to bring to the table. He grabbed three spoons out of the drawer just below the cupboard on the way to the table as well.

The two boys swapped after Nathan had gotten to the table. Carrying the milk bottle was one thing, but Jack still wasn’t that good at pouring it out. Instead, he filled the three bowls with the cereal Nathan had just handed him before moving to the side to let Nathan pour the milk in. No sugar today; the cereal they’d picked was already sweetened. It wasn’t Henry’s favourite, but it was good.

Henry nodded in satisfaction as he put the last pieces of the lunch sets in, before he shut the lid and made his way over to the table. As he sat down Jack suddenly stood up again.

“Juice!” Now that Henry had given him permission to talk telepathically, he was using it.

At his mental exclamation, Nathan also stood up. Henry nodded at the older boy’s quick look; he’d already had a coffee before starting to pack the lunches, so he was fine with juice as well. Confirmation received, he grabbed three glasses from the cupboard as Jack grabbed the half-empty bottle of local orange juice.

This bottle was light enough that Jack could pour out the drinks himself, although Henry could tell Nathan was holding himself back, otherwise the older boy would have tried to at least support the bottom half of the bottle as Jack poured.

Henry nodded his approval. Jack tended to thrive under Nathan’s more overprotective tendencies, and Nathan tended to thrive on the fact that Jack needed him, but both boys also knew that they needed to learn not to be so intensely dependent on each other.

Especially now they were both in different schools. As close as the two schools were, Nathan couldn’t just drop everything if Jack called him, and Jack knew he needed to learn not to call at the slightest amount of stress. As much as he’d like to.

After nearly a year at their new schools, Jack had mostly figured it out. He still had slip-ups, which was understandable, and the reason why Henry and David always acknowledged or praised him and Nathan when they managed to be self-reliant, like now.

The other minor problem they were facing with Jack at his school was that the younger boy was, for lack of a better term, relentlessly fair-minded. Probably because he could literally feel how upset people got when they knew they were being targeted for no honest reason.

Henry and David had stopped counting the number of times they’d been called in when Jack had adamantly refused to let a fellow student, or even a teacher, get away with doing something the other person knew was wrong. If he got overly stressed out and called for Nathan, they ended up with half a dozen or more people turning up at the school, all looking for answers.

The reality was, it didn’t matter how much Eureka’s DOD people wanted Jack’s abilities to be kept top secret, they couldn’t change the fact that he was still very much a little boy, and keeping secrets was never a high priority in his mind. And while only a few people had actually figured it out, David still had fun coming home and telling Henry and the boys the hairbrained theory of the day that Eureka’s vast scientific community had come up with regarding Jack’s “odd” behaviour.

For a long time, the majority of the theories had been about Jack being super-intelligent, usually some kind of psychological genius. Later on, as his extremely average test scores started coming in, the theories began varying from Nathan--who was acing every IQ test and had reached the top of his class within a few months of starting--building him some sort of super communicator to Jack being able to pick up alien spywaves. There was even a ghost network theory for a while.

None of the theories really bothered anyone in the household, although Nathan was a bit put out by the super communicator theory, not because it seemed more stupid than the others, but because he hadn’t quite figured out how to actually build one now that he’d heard about it.

Both Henry and David, however, had been a bit worried by Jack’s test results. After asking a few questions, they both realized that Jack was just as concerned as they were, but more due to the fact that he was getting frustrated by it. When the two men quizzed him about it, they quickly learnt that Jack’s ability to read people's minds had a downside. 

He had far more trouble retaining what he was being taught through verbal lessons. He wasn’t that good at reading either, but the best way he learnt things was the one way he couldn’t and wouldn’t do, because he knew the adults would be uncomfortable if they found out: he learned best by reading it directly from people’s minds.

After a lot of discussions and brainstorming, they all decided that while it was best to get Jack to try and learn things the standard way still, if there was something he just couldn’t grasp even the basics of, or simply couldn’t get his head around, Nathan would tutor him through their connection. And in the unlikely event it was something Nathan couldn’t get a grip on, Henry or David would allow him to look through their thoughts for an hour or so to learn the important parts.

When Henry asked Jack why he still used his telepathy for certain things from the teachers, but not for learning, the young boy explained as best he could. When the teachers were deliberately picking on someone, the way the student felt itched inside the back of his head until he did something to make it stop. He knew when the other kid had actually done something wrong; he said they often gave off a smug feeling. But if they were really, honestly upset at being treated unfairly, Jack needed to make it stop.

Henry always wondered what kind of person Jack could become when he grew up. He wondered how Nathan would turn out as well, of course, but David was still 100% Nathan’s loving father, and Henry would never even consider trying to replace that.

He’d never think of replacing who Jack had lost either, but he did feel the younger boy needed him more than Nathan did. Even if Jack often needed Nathan more than he needed Henry.

They were one strange little family.


	4. Author's Note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note

I'm still writing this fic, and I already have another chapter finished, however, my Beta Reader is currently too busy with life issues, so I'm in search of a replacement. I will start posting again as soon as I find one.


End file.
